Part 55 (1/2)

And in his chair by the fireside, the old man dropped from torpor to torpor, apart and unaware of them. When he waked they would have to go.

”Do you think,” said Laura, ”I'd better wake Papa?”

That was a question which this decided little person had never been able to decide for herself. It was too momentous.

”No,” said Nina, ”I think you'd better not.”

It was then that Mr. Gunning waked himself, violently; starting and staring, his pale eyes round with terror; for his sunstroke had made him dream dreams.

Laura gave an inarticulate murmur of compa.s.sion. She knelt by him, and held his hands in hers and stroked them.

”What is it, Papa dear, have you had a little dream? Poor darling,” she said, ”he has such horrid ones.”

Mr. Gunning looked about him, still alarmed, still surrounded as in his dream, by appalling presences. He was a little man, with a weak, handsome face, worn and dragged by emotion.

”What's all this? What's all this?” he reiterated, until out of the throng of presences he distinguished dimly a woman's form. He smiled at it. He was almost wide awake now.

”Is it Rose?” he said.

”No, Papa. It's Nina.”

Mr. Gunning became dejected. If it had been Rose she would have sat beside him and talked to him a little while.

He was perfectly wide awake now; he had seen Prothero; and the sight of Prothero revived in him his one idea. His idea was that every man who saw Laura would want to pick the little thing up and carry her away from him. He was haunted by the fear of losing Laura. He had lost everything he had and had forgotten it; but a faint memory of disaster persisted in his idea.

”What are you going to do with my little girl?” he said. ”You're not going to take her away? I won't have that. I won't have that.”

”Isn't he funny?” said Laura, unabashed. And from where she knelt, there on the verge of her terror, she looked up at the young man and laughed.

She laughed lest Prothero should feel uncomfortable.

Nina had risen for departure, and with a slow, reluctant movement of his long body, Prothero rose too. Nina could have sworn that almost he bowed his head over Laura's hand.

”May I come and see you again some day?” he said. And she said she would be very glad.

That was all.

Outside in the little dull street he turned to Nina.

”It wasn't fair, Nina; you didn't tell me I was going to have my heart wrung.”

”How could I know,” she said fiercely, ”what would wring your heart?”

He looked away lest he should seem to see what was in her.

But she knew he saw.

XXV

Three weeks pa.s.sed. Prothero had been four times to see Miss Gunning. He had been once because she said he might come again; once because of a book he had promised to lend her; once because he happened to be pa.s.sing; and once for no reason whatsoever. It was then borne in on him that what he required was a pretext. Calling late one evening he caught Miss Gunning in the incredible double act of flinging off a paragraph for the papers while she talked to Mr. Gunning.